After replacing its New Zealand lawyer, Prada yesterday dismissed its High Court lawsuit against Oracle. Oracle capitalized on Prada's commercial attorney's lack of familiarity with America's Cup arbitration regulations and snookered him up into filing a civil lawsuit when a more prudent course might have been to seek relief from the arbitration panel. Within 48 hours of Prada's lawsuit, Oracle had already filed an extensive, sophisticated and highly polished arbitration brief with the arbitrators seeking (surprise!) Prada's disqualification; an impossible legal drafting accomplishment unless, that is, Oracle had started its preparations well in advance. Oracle's barge spying antics will now be added to the arbitrators' docket and hopefully be dealt with before Prada's boat arrives assuming the arbitrators ever decide to go back to work.

Successful participation in the America's Cup requires more than a fast boat and good crew - competitors also need reliable and well-reasoned professional advice from legal advisors they can rely on. The rules are confusing and made even more so by substantial differences in the way legal rules are interpreted and applied in particpant countries and the situation is not helped in the least when the alternative dispute resolution process suffers from a case back-log caused by the arbitrators refusal to deliberate and rule until their unilateral demands for indemnity and insurance are satisfied. The situation is made ultra-critical when slick outfits like Oracle arrive with teams of attorneys with teeth sharpened through cut-throat American litigation and whose breakfasts consist of Kiwi barristers who ill-advisedly seek to sup at the AC trough. The truth be known, deforestation of New Zealand North Island is not the product of Asian lumber demand but, instead, to fill the demand for the woodpulp needed to create all the legal paper Oracle will need for the mountain of protests it plans to file against any competitor that stands between it and the Cup.

There's just too much at stake for a syndicate to risk the hiring of incompetent and inexperienced advisors trying to learn on the job and whose misteps such as filing a lawsuit without approval, exposes a client to embarassment, unnecessary expense and possibly worse. The Oracle arbitration application against Prada, while clearly pulled from their quiver of harassment tools, is only the first of many more they will generate from its attack/distract-the-other-team-at-all-costs department. So the word to the wise is this: hire a nasty and experienced American lawyer but before you make your decision be sure he's licensed to practice in the courts of New York, because that's where the winner of the 31st America's Cup will ultimately be decided.

06/24/2002